Tiny stitches and Fabric Painting

On the top photo is my first attempt at fabric painting using a stencil and fabric paint. The stencils I bought from a car boot sale last year and the fabric paints which are by a company called Dylon I bought from the material store. I mixed purple with fluorescent pearl glitter and so far quite pleased how this has turned out. The background green colour on the fabric that you can see was dyed a few weeks ago using procion dyes. Anyone can do this.....if you look in stencil books in charity shops these are usually a good place where to find them and car boot sales. The celtic stencils here are done by Dover.

Ive got to wait for the fabric paint to dry now, fix with the iron using a cotton cloth in between of course so that the dried paint wont stick to the iron.

the sturdy stencil brush came from a kiddies shop where they sell paints and brushes for kids.

im quite pleased with this I would like to go for blues and green paints for the next couple of rows.

Some can be embroidered round the edges with mulitcoloured thread in a simple chain stitch giving me the feel how embroidery was done in the middle ages. These are all going to be cut up anyway in hexagon shapes so anything different is pleasing to the eye. I hope you like what I have done and that you will all have a go too and have fun just like I have done.

Hi All.... I thought I would post a picture of what I'm doing and why these little things just take so long... all the hand stitching of course!!

My mum advised me to make the hexagon material for the coat at least forty five inches going across so that is what I have been doing. Sewing hexagons to make the length across, I am almost there, Ive got about another eight hexagons to sew on the end of this then all the hexagons go upwards then up to several metres. Most people would throw this down and say they don't have the patience but I like challenges like that to have a quilt or garment that Ive made and sort of designed myself nothing beats that feeling. I have taped some fabric to some wooden boards to do some stencilling on the fabric. Seeing as I'm going to need a lot of fabric for this coat I will be painting, stencilling and maybe dye some more fabrics when the weather gets warmer. The weather is cold especially when that cold wind blows whipping at your skin til blue.

Some of my material stash that I don't want that I have collected over the years I'm going to put on eBay as Id rather sell some of the stash and get some batik material instead.

There are quite a few UFO quilts to finish off and any new quilts would more likely be brightly coloured due to my taste and artistic ideas that are in the sketchbooks. Ive not made any plans to do or enter any quilts in quilt shows for this year I just have so many UFO quilts to do.

Over the next few days I will be working on material along my favourite themes of Klimt and VanGogh and of course symbols of the moon and stars, Celtic and mythological. I will certainly post some pictures to let you know how I'm getting along good and bad. My mum sent me some wonderful bright coloured t shirts so... quilted coats, quilted waistcoats and applique on skirts are an order for me lol.

Hope everyone is having fun and coming up with lots of quilting ideas.

happy quilting...

faithx